Posted on 09/14/2002 10:36:33 PM PDT by BlackJack
A court in Argentina has ruled that a series of emergency banking restrictions designed to protect the financial system are unconstitutional.
Last December, the government drastically limited access to savings to stop a run on bank deposits, and then earlier this year it converted all dollar savings to pesos.
In strictly legal terms, the issues are clear - in an attempt to protect the nation's banks from collapse, the government decided to fence off people's savings Banking analysts say that if the higher courts confirm the ruling, it could be enough to collapse the entire financial system.
But the government has promised to appeal.
The game of brinkmanship between the courts and the government is the way one analyst described the legal battle over the validity of the government's banking restrictions.
But in this game, he said, it is the future of the entire nation's financial sector that is at stake.
Significant loss
In strictly legal terms, the issues are clear - in an attempt to protect the nation's banks from collapse, the government decided to fence off people's savings.
And to make sure the banks had the capacity to honour those savings, the government ruled that all dollar deposits had to be converted to pesos, a conversion that cost billions in the paper value of those savings.
Finally, the government severely limited the public's ability to get at their money by appealing through the courts.
But now, a court has judged all three measures to be unconstitutional.
It is not the first time the government has lost a case like this, but this one is significant because it was brought by the ombudsman on behalf of all savers.
Impeachment
The government will appeal and, until the appeals process is complete, the status quo remains in place.
But this also seems to be more than just a legal battle. The Congress has begun impeachment proceedings against the Supreme Court over allegations of corruption, and some observers believe this latest ruling is the court's attempt to strike back.
To complicate matters even further, it also undermines the government's attempts to sign an aid package with the IMF.
The fund has repeatedly said it is unwilling to lend more money unless the future of the banking system is secure. This latest judgment just made it even shakier.
Manageable. And creditors who've invested over a trillion dollars generally agree.
You not saying that federal land and water is used as collateral for loans are you?
Just to get a perspective, do you know what the annual revenue stream (less expenses) is from selling access to minerals and water? Also, if the resources were in private hands, wouldn't they do roughly the same, assuming they didn't sell them off or utilize them themselves?
One can make a case that government shouldn't be the manager of most of this, as with most government activity, but I don’t see any evidence that it's grossly mismanaged or uniquely unsustainable.
Yep, I have. Just forgot how hard she hits. Good stuff!
As you know, until recently, I was involved in wiring multi-million dollar vacation homes for "the rich". Damn right they were rich - they could afford to drop $2 million on a vacation home which would be used two months per year. The last one I worked on had seven rock fireplaces (Keep in mind that this is a summer home.)
So I have some insight into these people, and what I have seen is not pretty. Most of them are arrogant and stupid, a bad combination. They really don't know what they want. But when we tell them what they need, they reject our advice. Then they bitch about the final results later, and refuse to pay, because it "wasn't what they wanted".
I guess I'm just pissed because none of them would think twice about tipping a waitress or a Sky-Cap $20, but would not even consider tipping some minimum-wage construction worker who worked two months on their home.
They can have their own currency without any help from any world banks at all. The only question is will they do it?
They don't realize wealth is something only people can produce. They think of minerals in the ground or trees lakes and scenic vistas as wealth. What they don't realize is that without humans, there is no way to put a price or value on these things.
You wouldn't be taking about the ruling class would you? The king of France and Russia and that kind of thing? They are really annoyed they were booted from power, you know.
Well you could still work for them, just demand a bond or advance payment. Otherwise no way would I associate with such creeps.
>They simply project self-hatred in order to unload. "Nicely stated. Worth repeating."
And I'll repeat it as well. This is a well-worded picture of the Ted Turner types out there.
BTW, Carry_Okie, I have the book and I am slowly working my way through the first part. Good stuff so far.
That first chapter is tough, simply because the concepts are so powerful yet so alien and abstract. The second chapter probably does a more thorough job of cutting the environmental movement to philosophical shreds than anything I have seen (the reason for its structure isn't obvious until the discussion of the Earth Charter and global governance in Part V). The third chapter in Part I probably needs reorganization more than anything else in the book. It's necessary to cover the material, but I think it might be parted out elsewhere to get the reader into Part II more quickly.
That is exactly one of the problems. I spend a lot of time in western Argentina and work out of a province that is largely agricultural. The province has about 400-thousand residents and 35,000 provincial employees, all making very good wages. The 35,000 doesn't include federal, and city employees.
Couple this with the graft in the country plus labor unions that are much too powerful and the place is a disaster and things will only get worse before there is any improvement. This in a country that should be one of the most affluent nations in the world.
Ain't socialism grand??
I'm anxious to get into the shredding of the philosophy of the extremists in the environmental movement. I suspect that they are mostly "useful idiots" in the grand scheme of things.
One of the things I'm looking for in this text is being able to get my leftist brother to read it. He's highly concerned with things environmental, but he has, unfortunately, fallen for the extremists. He was very upset when I bought an SUV. He's essentially stuck in the 60's with all the preconcieved notions that he learned in college in those years. So far, it appears that the book may be attractive to him, but the mere mention of somebody other than government doing something positive may draw his ire.
I'm anxious to get into the shredding of the philosophy of the extremists in the environmental movement. I suspect that they are mostly "useful idiots" in the grand scheme of things.
One of the things I'm looking for in this text is being able to get my leftist brother to read it. He's highly concerned with things environmental, but he has, unfortunately, fallen for the extremists. He was very upset when I bought an SUV. He's essentially stuck in the 60's with all the preconcieved notions that he learned in college in those years. So far, it appears that the book may be attractive to him, but the mere mention of somebody other than government doing something positive may draw his ire.
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